Chapter 10

Under the sea

The Great Fox moved as slowly as it possibly could onto the ever expansive sea of Aquas. This was followed by the Blue Marine flopping out of the hangar, "BONSAI!" Piers whooped from his parascope position on the ship's leftmost console as the sub leisurely floated above water

Fox sighed as he sat in the front, working to steady the ship on his pilot station, and Krystal's seat was a tall, yellow cyndrical object, the weapons console,

Akeem growled, "Prepare to dive." he yelled from his radar station, the right-most console

Peppy's voice came over the radio, "Fox, just to review, the Blue Marine handles very similarly to the Arwing, it's just slow and sluggish like your average submarine. Also, the Blue Marine is equipped with a live data feed, so we see what's going on on land as soon as you do."

"Okay Pep, thanks for the info. Preparing to submerge."

"WOO HOO!" shouted Piers

"Will you shut up? This isn't a game." Akeem snarled

"Let me have my fun Silver, the sea is home to me, and I wanna enjoy every second of it."

The submarine then submerged. After a few minutes, Fox spoke up, "Okay you guys, nothing so far…HOLY CREATOR!" Fox yelled barrel-rolling, nearly knocking over Piers and Akeem,

"M-Mutant clams!" Krystal quivered, pointing a claw at a clam that had just fired a ball of energy

Piers chuckled, but his fun-loving smile vanished once he saw that Krystal was telling the truth.

"Wow….I never thought that Andross would go this nuts with bioweaponry. The damage to the ecosystem will take years to repair, if not decades…." Slippy said

Krystal butted in, "As much as I respect your love for your homeland, now isn't the time or the place to lament, we have a planet to retake."

The submarine floated into a school of starfish, to which Krystal responded by unloading plasma into most of the group. Fox hastily pulled the ship down so Krystal couldn't shoot down the final starfish, "Creator Krystal, they're just…."

That's when the starfish exploded into a huge ball of fire which was quickly extinguished by the water around them, "…Fish?" Fox squeaked

"What in the name of the Creator…?" Peppy whispered over the radio,

"I'm just as confused as you are." Fox admitted

"Fox, there's a coral reef on our twelve, go through it Akeem commanded

Fox hesitated. A slow, sluggish submarine was not the craft with which to pull a maneuver like that Then he saw why Akeem had asked him to do that, Another school of starfish floated aimlessly in their path, the only thing keeping them from going right into the explosion that was to come were a cluster of the aforementioned arch shaped coral reefs. Fox easily swooped under them, "Captain, we've got bogies comin' in from behind." Piers informed

Fox sighed and began to barrel roll like crazy as Krystal shot out a combo of lasers and torpedos destroying the mutant laser fish that had rocketed in from behind, "Conserve those torpedos Krystal." Fox ordered in the most serious voice he could muster.

"What does this symbol mean?" Krystal asked pointing to the screen.

Fox scoffed and set the sub on autopilot. Quickly, he jumped into the cylnder. Squinting at the screen, he let out a confused grunt, "This can't be right." Fox said, as the ship was rocked by some stray laser blasts.

"Why not?" Krystal asked sweetly, fearing she'd misused the technology on board

"That's the symbol for infinity."

Piers leaned from his post to get a good look, "I'll be damned…" Piers said

"All the while, conserve your torpedos Krystal, for there might be other forces at work here." Akeem explained, glaring right at Piers.

"Calm down matie. I haven't seen something like this since my last contract. You see, Corneria's had gunpowder lying around for centuries, so they gave it to the Navy so that each submarine can literally manufacture as many torpedoes as it needs automatically . Then they have a heat seeking device so now it's a homing torpedo. Don't you see?"

"Mini-torpedo factories inside the submarine? Unbelievable." Fox said, his eyes wide

Akeem snorted loudly and nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer, "The area you're entering has been measured as…resistance…minimal." ROB explained

Fox looked around. What he saw amazed him. They were the structure of some long lost temple, probably back from when Aquas was a land continent millions of years ago.

"Fox we've got a bogey coming up on us and fast!" Akeem yelled as his console started to beep nervously.

Suddenly, the sub lurched. The four wimpered as screws from the ship's interior landed at their feet, "SHARK!" Krystal squealed, pointing a claw out of the window.

"Wait…OH COOL!" Falco cried, "If it wasn't about to put you clowns six feet under…." Falco paused, snickering at the joke he accidentally made, "That would be the coolest thing I've ever seen."

"As much as I would like to laugh at that," said Piers, "I'm quite….busy."

The shark, its teeth thrashing dove at the ship again. It nearly swated the ship with its tail, but Fox dove, the sub now touching the ocean floor, "Be careful Fox. The Blue Marine isn't as manuverable as the Arwing." Slippy explained

Krystal launched a torpedo at the shark's white underbelly. The shark simply shook the feeling off as Fox dove up again and unleashed laser on the shark's black topside, "Nothing's working!" Krystal whined

"We're taking on water!" Piers cried

"No no no!" Akeem said, slamming on the consol as the radar went blank in a shower of sparks.

Fox then noticed something, a broken pillar was to the shark's right, "Krystal, fire at that broken pillar!" Fox commanded

Krystal shot at the moldy stone on the old pillar. The pillar steadly floated down eventually knocking into the shark, trapping it in between sand and stone.

As they left the temple structures a flock of fish zoomed up to them, which Krystal shot, "Matie, we're coming up on some pretty suspicious rock structures." Piers informed Fox looking at the periscope.

Just then, the "rock structures" floated upwards to reveal that they were orange shrimps with hard metal plates on their heads.

"Lock on Krystal!" Peppy ordered

Krystal locked on destroying most of the mutated shrimp. However, one was actually smart enough to dodge the laser blasts, ramming into the ship, sending both Piers and Akeem on a collision course with the wall knocking them both out in a flash!

"Piers! Akeem! DAMN IT!" Fox cursed, "ROB, give me a resistance level reading NOW! I need to know if Krystal and I can do this on our own"

"Resistance level minimal. Cloaking device generators should be with in line of sight. WARNING WARNING! Main bioweapon detected!" ROB wailed in his monotone voice.

"What, I don't see anything…"

"That's what they want." Krystal growled softly, shooting a torpedo into the supposedly open air, revealing a giant clam blocking the generators.

"F-Fox!" Krystal gutped

"Oh my…" Fox whispered

The clam shell opened partialy, revealing that the clam had one glowing yellow eye rested in between two tube like structures. Fox saw the top half of the shell move. With all his might, Fox pressed the break just as the clam shell clamped down sending a huge wave of air which probably would have torn apart the Blue Marine had Fox not used the breaks.

"We've gotta get the top half off somehow…" Fox thought aloud

"Go for those tubes on the top." Slippy's voice cracked over the radio.

As if it had heard, the clam's tubes shot out three snake like creatures (one per tube) Krystal easily dodged the snakes and shot the tube on the left with a torpedo. It shook nervously before breaking off. The sea creature howled in pain, opening up its clam shell partially, revealing the tubes, "FIRE!" Fox screamed

Krystal fired a torpedo in between the two tubes, which made them turn a rainbow of colors, "Fire a homing torpedo!" Slippy advised

Krystal did so, causing the one on the left to shrivel up. The creature yelped in surprise pain as the lid clamped down again. This apparently wasn't helping matters, because the creature squirmed, causing the snakes that came out of the two remaining top tubes come in at unpredictable directions, which didn't make Krystal's job any easier. She shot a laser, killing one metal snake allowing Fox to dodge the other one easily. Krystal smirked and fired two torpedos at a time, knocking away the two tubes.. Suddenly, the clam's top half started to flop in pain, accidentaly causing it to snap it's other tube, causing the clam's top half to drift away, "Aim from the eye!" Peppy shouted

Krystal shot yet another torpedo, causing into impact the eye. The resulting explosion caused the eye to explode, setting off a chain reaction within the clam…and the cloaking device generators as well.

"Yipee! You did it!" Slippy shouted

"Nice going you four." Bill yelled, completely unaware that Piers and Akeem were just now coming to.

"Shall you do the honors Sarge?" Peppy chuckled

"I would be delighted Hare. Soldiers…. LAUNCH AND OPEN FIRE!" Sarge boomed

Stephanie Phoenix was stroking her feathers looking into a mirror admiring her perfect face when the humming that had been heard on Aquas died with a failing whir. Stephanie sat up, "What was that?" she asked timidly

A monkey saluted as he walked up to Phoenix, "M'am , the shield generators went down." he quivered

Phoenix slammed her wing on her chair, "Who are the culprits?" she hissed

"Approximately four Arwing class Cornerian cruisers as well as two Cornerian class Aerowings, and two one pirated Katinian craft m'am. What do we do?" he asked

Stephanie thought for a moment, "It took two of our best generals to even pose a threat to them. We die….WITH HONOR!" Stephanie cried

She hustled over to a communicator. She tapped something in the keypad and the image of a sleeping simian appeared. From underneath her bed covers, Stephanie could see that the young woman had slept in eye shadow from the night before. The simian's blue eyes eyes fluttered open, and she stretched, "Stephanie, my darling, what brings you to contact me…?" she continued but was cut off when a servant handed her a plate.

"Jewel, my love, my time on this world has come to an end."

Jewel blinked, "Don't leave me Stephanie." pleaded the teary eyed chimpanze

"I must. It is my duty to Venom. Well, what do you know? My time is here. Goodbye Jewel…I will always love you…" she began but was cut off by several loud explosions and the communication cut off.

Jewel grabbed one of the freshly fluffed pillows and screamed, "You will be avenged…and…and I know the perfect person to do it." She spoke to herself, only now allowing herself to cry.

Even at 500 feet below sea level, Fox McCloud could still see pieces of the small Aquas Island being destroyed. Fox pulled away just in time to see some small fragments falling into the see, "Argh…I'm sorry I missed the fun mate." Piers apologized, clutching his head after Fox told him what happened.

"I am sorry I could not have been a better service to you ." Akeem stated

"Forget it." Fox whispered, pressing a button on the radio, "We are preparing to dock!" Fox yelled into it.

"Finally!" Bill yelled, "I was getting worried."

"I'll take the sky any day." Falco proclaimed

"You'd like the water if you grew up on it." Slippy snapped

"Holy crap, what crawled up your ass?" Falco laughed

"I just did considerable damage to my home, HOW DO YOU THINK I FEEL YOU MOTHER FU-"

"Mission…" Miyu began

"COMPLETE!" Fay finished

"Slippy, are you alright? You sounded downright pissed there." Fox said

"I'm okay Fox. I just had to get that off my chest. I do suppose it isn't impossible to rebuild…."

"Let's stop dillydallying and GO!" Wisp ordered

"I'm ready to unleash plasma on those jerks that took over Zoness." Katt hissed

The sub resurfaced and floated into the soaked hangar of The Great Fox. Immediately, Piers shook McCloud's hand, "Good sailing McCloud, for an air junkie." Piers snapped sarcasticaly as a grin spread across his face.

Fox returned the chuckle as Krystal jogged up to him, "You were great." she complemented

"Oh uh…thank you. You were pretty good too." Fox blushed, "Which brings up an interesting quandary, how did you learn so much about submarines?"
"Read Slippy's mind. I learned more useless technobabble than I care to have learned."
"Yeah, it can get nuts when you catch Slip on that train of thought, but I could try and explain some of it over dinner if we get any shore leave."
"Fox? Is that considered romantic, sharing a meal?"
"I suppose it is."

"It sounds beautiful, from the way your mind paints a picture of it. I accept your proposal."

Fox's eyes suddenly widened, causing Krystal to briefly chortle with laughter, "Krazoa above, Katt knows just how to make you tick?"
"What did Katt tell you?" Fox wondered aloud

Suddenly, Peppy appeared on the bridge, "General Pepper's on the hologram."

"Damn it, now I just want to know!" shouted Fox, causing Krystal to laugh in a faux evil way

Fox ran into the main room with the rest of the team and saluted the General's hologram, "Fox, according to the tabs ROB's been keeping, you're doing pretty damned good. You were exactly what we needed, a team that is able to swoop in quickly, get the job done. For your next mission, I'm going to need you to head back to Katina."

The tean nodded, all except for Peppy, "Dare I ask why?" he asked

"You are going to be embark with the Cornerian Air Force to Zoness. Now, I ask that you go ahead of the Air Force because your job is to clear out the search lights so the rest of the unit can make it through undetected, and destroy the factories that are on the planet."

Katt nearly jumped for joy, "If it isn't too much trouble, I would like to accompany the Cornerian fleet to the factories. I know the lay of the land and, I'm sorry Pepper, but I have a little bit of a personal vendetta with the forces occupying my home. Venom destroyed my home planet, and I'd like to kick their tails for it." Katt hissed

"Granted Monroe."

"Of course SHE gets to go." Falco scoffed at the General's comment

"Oh, like you actually want to go with the Air Force? You just want the glor…" Slippy began before Akeem discreetly stomped on the toad's foot, silencing him.

"I bid you all happy hunting on this mission. The fleet will depart 3 days from when you arrive, so you have time to suck in your reward, time in Imperial City."

There was clamor about this, but Fox hushed them, "Thank you General."

"Think nothing of it McCloud. Pepper…OUT!" Pepper said with a smirk as the hologram disappeared.

There was more clamor about the mini-vacation (all except for Slippy, who hobbled back to his room, tending to his foot.) Everyone was in awe of their impending trip to the city, but Krystal, a foreigner, was in the most amazement, as memories that each team had concerning Imperial City flooded her mind "The great Imperial City eh Bill?" she said to Bill, who seemed to have the most memories of the city.

"Well…yeah but…" Bill chuckled sheepishly

"You are one lucky lady, you get to stay in the greatest city of all time!" Wisp shouted

"That's just the Katinian pride talkin' Wisp. The Cornerian Thunder shut out the Camels in the last soccer match Lylat had before the league disbanded in light of the war…" Peppy began

As Fox watched the two argue light-heartedly about soccer, Krystal gleefully wrapped her arms around his torso, whispering, "Looks like we'll get that shore leave sooner than you imagined." she said, walking away

Fox could only stand in shock as ROB set a course for Katina